How to Get Rid of a Frown and Find a Smile

MakeBeliefs 2 Help U Smile & Lift Your Spirits

Here’s the latest installment in our Make Beliefs Series created to provide comfort and hope to young and old who are feeling distressed and anxious in our too fast-changing and sometimes unforgiving world. It’s our way of making things better by helping you imagine! I created these MakeBeliefs to find hope. If you find value in the MakeBeliefs project, please share this newsletter with someone you care about. 

In Hong Kong, some people who are angry and hold a grudge hire people to bash images of their target in a ‘’villain hitting’’ ritual.

According to an AP article by Alice Fung and Karmen Li, ‘’To relieve themselves from a bad mood, customers paid ritual practitioners who work underneath the Canal Road Flyover in Causeway Bay, one of the city’s shopping districts, and watched them bashing an image of their target with a shoe. It could be anyone — rival lovers and unfriendly colleagues, or horrible bosses and unlikeable public figures.

‘’The ritual is particularly popular in March because some people believe that the best day to perform it falls on “ging zat,” as pronounced in Cantonese, a day on the Chinese lunar calendar that literally means “awakening of insects.”

‘’Ho Pan-yong, one of the practitioners, said she wanted to help her customers whack the bad people away from their lives. She charged 50 Hong Kong dollars ($6.4) for the five-minute act, which includes lighting incense offering to gods followed by whacking the target and concludes by ritual blessing.’’

The ritual does not hurt anyone physically,

Maybe people in Hong Kong have something good going for them with this grudge bashing? Perhaps hitting a photo with your shoe is a good, safe way to get rid of something bothering you.  Have you ever tried that? What do you think?

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